Fallow Field, Unexpected Fruit

I (finally!) finished my 100 Day Project yesterday. It took more of me than I thought… nearly all of me there for a while. Time. Energy. Creativity. There was not much left over for things like writing and keeping up with reading other blogs, and I’m looking forward to catching up. The project evolved quite a bit since I started, 14 weeks ago. I’m posting the completed pieces to my facebook page, a little bit at a time, through the end of July. But if you want to see all of them at once (with the original captions!) you can go here: 100 Days of Midnyght Poem Art. For some reason if you view them through Instagram’s internal filter, it doesn’t display all 100, just the ones it deems “most popular.”

My takeaway from the project was in line with my ongoing karmic lessons: things can change, it’s okay when they change. Sometimes you need to change, even though the “plan” is not to change.

I’ve been dealing with extreme fatigue for the past several months, and although I felt better going into this project, it bit pretty hard and took me down. I took a few days off and recouped, recommitted, and kept moving forward. I also, a little over halfway through, gave myself permission to return to illustration instead of continuing trying to illustrate the poems. Although I enjoyed the writing, I very much did not enjoy trying to illustrate them. I was fighting the process and finally decided it just wasn’t for me. I decided it was okay not to continue doing something I disliked. (A seemingly simple but really a big takeaway for me.)

I do want to continue writing poetry though. I’m thrilled to have reconnected with that part of myself, and my first post-100 Day poem is above. 🙂

My husband asked if I would have chosen to do this again, knowing now how much it took out of me, and the answer is still yes. Absolutely yes. I really loved seeing other people’s processes and continued progress. The peer pressure kept me going, even when I fell behind.

Three Thing Saturday (a thing, a thought, a real, tagged with #threethingsaturday) also evolved out of this project as a way to be authentic about my artistic process and myself as person. It’s tiny, right now. Only a few people participate each week, but I’m so darn PROUD of the women who put themselves out there, who dare to be vulnerable and authentic and real about themselves and what they’re thinking. I started the hashtag because I wanted to combat the “comparing our insides to others’ outsides” phenomenon, especially among creative folks. It’s just my small drop in the bucket, but I love how it’s evolving so far. Slow and steady wins the race. And if you’re on Instagram, and feel like participating in Three Thing Saturday too, I’d really love it if you did.

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These are some of the projects that I particularly loved. Many of these women have blogs themselves, so you might consider checking them out and saying hello!

Elena’s TreeHouse: A Line by Nine – Elena created the most adorable illustrations of sayings from her son, husband, and a few of her own. I’m totally envious of her papercutting and watercolor skills.

Esther Loopstra’s Illustration: 100 Days of Food and Lettering – I love Esther’s illustrations of food (she has an “Eat Strong” print in her Etsy shop that I am in love with). She covered a range of styles and subjects in her 100 Day Project and they were so fun to see in my feed each day.

Snitsya: My 100 Days of Gratitude – Snitsya has the loveliest handwriting and tangle style… It was so much fun to get to know her through her choices, and I loved seeing what she came up for her illustrations.

Brandeye8: 100 Days of Doodles – Brandi sent out a call for “I’ll make a doodle for you!” early on in the project. I started following her and then got on the roster, and I’m so glad I did. Brandi is a scrapbooker, and her project turned into an extraordinary journey for her as the doodles turned her into an entrepreneur and teacher! It was so much fun to watch her journey. Unfortunately, other people used the same hashtag as she did, so I’m just going to link to her Instagram feed, she’s still doing doodles, so check them out.

Acorn and Oak Textiles – 100 Days of Embroidery Stitches – This one really appealed to me as I used to do a lot of embroidery, but never branched out into that many different stitches. I loved seeing what new stitch she came up with each day. She’s also a really talented felting artist, and that was fun to see too!

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4 thoughts on “Fallow Field, Unexpected Fruit”

I’m so impressed you completed the 100 Day Challenge. I can’t believe it took 14 weeks– that takes major commitment, especially when you are raising a young family that basically always needs your attention.

I hope to join in on the 3 Things Saturday again; that was so much fun. Good for you for starting such a cool little movement :).

Thank you so much Nina! Letting go of what I’d originally intended to do was the hardest part of this project. My personality type is so “This was the plan, you’re deviating from the plan, alert, alert!!!” Switching gears midway was a relief, but it took a while to admit to myself I needed to do it.

Artwork

Looking for all the artwork? It’s moving to a new website that is currently under construction. Feel free to email and ask me about it! In the meantime, many of my prints are available in my Etsy Store.

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